Age at surgical referral and anatomical position of undescended testis in children presenting to the day surgical unit at Lady Ridgeway Hospital for Children, Colombo

Undescended testis (UDT) carries an increased risk of malignant transformation and sub fertility in adulthood compared to a naturally descended testis. Higher risk of malignant transformation is observed in high anatomical locations of UDT. Timely orchidopexy around six months is recommended by the British association of Paediatric Urologists. However, this is not practised widely.

The objectives were to study the anatomical locations of UDT and to determine the age of child at surgical referral for orchidopexy, intending to utilise this data to motivate clinicians to refer for timely orchidopexy. Data was collected from hospital records of 200 consecutive children managed in a paediatric surgical unit. There were 217 UDT in 200 children as 17 were bilateral. Only 27% (54/200) children were referred for orchidopexy before six months of age. 9.7% (21/217) UDT were located intra- abdominally.

Drafting of a national policy on timely orchidopexy is necessary. The data on anatomical positions of UDT in children would be useful to future researches with interests on malignant risk and sub fertility associated with UDT.